Tony Butler

Executive Director

Meet Tony, Executive Director at Derby Museums. Want to find out more about him? We asked him some questions and here is what we found out…

1. Many of the people that Joseph Wright painted chose to be depicted with an object that tells us something about them as a person. What object would you choose and why?
   I would choose the 1996 edition of the AA Book of the Road that belonged to my late Dad. I have lived all over the UK and am fascinated by the local distinctiveness of our towns, villages and countryside. The details of roads and lanes of provincial Britain offer so many temptations. It reminds me of a world not that long ago, before Sat Navs and smart phones.

2. If you could be any animal from the Nature Gallery, which would you be and why?
   I like the Sun Bear, because he looks like he’s doing freaky dancing.

3. What makes you happy?
   Aside from being with my young family, I spend most of my time talking, meeting and being an ambassador for the museum. So I get huge pleasure from being alone in the countryside, I’ve a number of favourite empty places I return to – Black Mountains in Wales, the marshes of Suffolk, Portmahomack in Scotland and in Derbyshire Lathkill Dale.

4. What do you love to do in your spare time? (Aside from working at the museum, obviously)
   I like cooking and cycling. I really enjoying watching my daughters grow up right now, and I like listening to Brian Eno.